As A.T.O'Connor: short stories in the Seasons Anthologies. YA Novel: WHISPERING MINDS.

Posted 30 March 2011 - 11:17 AM

Agent Elana Roth tweeted my exact sentiments today.

Picture book queries should be short, short, short. There is absolutely no reason to write long and risk a rejection on a poor query when the manuscript is good. Additionally, long picture book queries take up oodles of time. Yours as you write it and an agent's as she reads it.

If your PB query is longer than your manuscript, rewrite.

My method:

Email subject line: PB Query, TITLE, word count.

Body of email: a fantastic two or three sentence hook followed by a relevant bio.

Salutation.

If you are brave enough to sub this way, you just may find yoursel ahead of the query game.

Thank you! I have been looking for information on PB queries. I knew there had to be something some where. And this was posted over 3 years ago...wait am I time traveling into the past, or are you traveling into the future...hummmm